


oft in stars

by catpoop



Series: Sheith Month 2018 [13]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Galaxy Garrison, Introspection, Kerberos Mission, M/M, a clue: shuttle re-entry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 16:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15295821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catpoop/pseuds/catpoop
Summary: Sheith Month '18 - 16/7: IgniteA year after the Kerberos mission first launched, Keith waits passionately for their return





	oft in stars

**Author's Note:**

> :3
> 
> (its midnight in my timezone so ha ha lets posty post)

In retrospect, Keith should’ve seen it coming. Nothing is ever perfect – not his mother, disappearing before he learned to speak, not his father, dead before he hit double digits. And least of all – Shiro, with his perfect smile and his perfect academic record and that too-fast too soon ascension into the ranks of authority. He had been a source of brightness in Keith’s life, and now, violently extinguished.

In retrospect, Keith had been naïve, stupid, and overtly hopeful after nearly a year of minimal contact. Every second of the Kerberos shuttle’s return had been documented, every second bringing Shiro (and the Holts) closer to home. Keith had excitedly donned his cleanest uniform for the viewing ceremony, staring up at the lightening sky for the first sign of their shuttle.

The crowd that forms is mostly cadets and uniformed officers, those higher-up watching the live footage from their offices. Keith can feel the palpable tension at the first sign of re-entry, feels his own heart beat a chaotic rhythm at the thought of Shiro landing back on Earth in an hour, maybe less. Despite the chill of the desert air, the crowd around him warms him with their excitement, and Keith has no qualms about standing there for another hour.

The noise swells as the shuttle makes like a shooting star across the sky, and Keith stares upwards, grateful for once that he doesn’t have to tiptoe around the taller people in front of him. The descent will be much the same for the ensuing hour, but Keith remains enraptured, wishing he could hear Shiro’s own excitement and Matt’s no-doubt exuberant celebrations. They’d be focused, but still immature in other ways.

That had been one of the risks the Garrison was willing to take. Sacrificing experience for the youth and exceptional skill that Matt and Shiro possessed. And it had gone well. Very well.

The shuttle continues to blaze a victorious passage downwards, its precious cargo breaking so many records that something else has to break, too. Damage to the fuselage, Keith later finds out. He can’t see much at this distance, but the fireball that flashes in the sky about halfway into the waiting process is unmistakeable. The crowd twitters around him.

“What was that?”  
“Did you see –”

 _Was that…_ Like a switch has been flicked, bile rises in Keith’s throat before his brain has caught up to the present, and he vomits directly onto his shoes while his ears pound with the cacophony of everything that he’d feared would happen. The people around him barely take notice.

When he dares to look up again, nothing has changed. Light illuminates the pale dawn sky as the fuselage warps, the interior ignites, the _crew –_

Keith had written an essay about a historical event just like this, is the funny thing, sees the words he had typed out flash before him in clarity. Temperatures reaching up to 1600 degrees Celsius; the last words received by mission control; the probability of survival. 

Even as he chokes on air he wishes he could see their three parachutes descending to safety, even if it’s too high up to survive, too improbable. 

_Shiro!_ He wants to yell, _Shiro, please…_ but whatever is still left in his stomach finds its way back up, burning a messy column up his throat.

Another minute ticks by of the fireball’s slow descent, and Keith can’t take it anymore. There’s nothing waiting for him on the other side, and he doesn’t want to spend these agonising last minutes trapped among all these people who only know Shiro by reputation.

He swings his arms at the nearest gap in the crowd, fixes his eyes on the Garrison complex behind them, and screams.

“Let me out! Let me – _move!_ Move, fucking move!”

He struggles to beat a path out of the suffocating crowd around him, suddenly loathing every single one of them, standing there and gawping at the sky as they watch the funeral pyre of the Kerberos shuttle.

 _Do something!_ His mind screams, but there’s nothing he can do save for running to the nearest bathroom and hacking up bile until the nausea threatens to topple him.

The Garrison will take a day to release an official statement, prim and proper and formal enough that one would think there had merely been a blip in the system, a slight upset. Keith wishes he could sleep past that – and then the days after, until he wakes to Shiro’s face and voice telling him that it was a nightmare, _everything will be okay._

**Author's Note:**

> oop
> 
> (also: i will try and get the fic for the 14th out... its just not yet written :c )


End file.
